CHAP. 4.--And leaving Jesus within the Pretorium, Pilate went out to
the Jews and said to them: I find no fault in him. The Jews say to him:
He said, I can destroy this temple, and in three days build it. Pilate
says: What temple? The Jews say: The one that Solomon built in forty-six
years, and this man speaks of pulling it down and building it up in
three days. Pilate says to them: I am innocent of the blood of this just
man. See you to it. The Jews say: His blood be upon us and upon our
children.
And Pilate, having summoned the elders and priests and Levites, said to
them privately: Do not act thus, because no charge that you bring
against him is worthy of death; for your charge is about curing and
Sabbath profanation. The elders and the priests and the Levites say: If
anyone speak evil against Cæsar, is he worthy of death or not? Pilate
says: He is worthy of death. The Jews say to Pilate: If anyone speak
evil against Cæsar, he is worthy of death; but this man has spoken evil
against God.
And the procurator ordered the Jews to go outside of the Pretorium; and,
summoning Jesus, he says to him: What shall I do to thee? Jesus says to
Pilate: As it has been given to thee. Pilate says: How given? Jesus
says: Moses and the prophets have proclaimed beforehand of my death and
resurrection. And the Jews, noticing this and hearing it, say to Pilate:
What more wilt thou hear of this blasphemy? Pilate says to the Jews: If
these words be blasphemous, do you take him for the blasphemy, and lead
him away to your synagogue and judge him according to your law. The Jews
say to Pilate: Our law bears that a man who wrongs his fellow-men is
worthy to receive forty save one: but he that blasphemeth God is to be
stoned with stones.
Pilate says to them: Do you take him and punish him in whatever way you
please. The Jews say to Pilate: We wish that he be crucified. Pilate
says: He is not deserving of crucifixion.
And the procurator, looking round upon the crowds of the Jews standing
by, sees many of the Jews weeping, and says: All the multitude do not
wish him to die. The elders of the Jews say: For this reason all the
multitude of us have come, that he should die. Pilate says to the Jews:
Why should he die? The Jews say: Because he called himself the Son of
God and King.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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